Ah, Unleashed. This is one of those bands that gets respect for their old albums, but nothing past about their third CD gets any respect at all. Now I remember when "Where No Life Dwells" came out, and how everyone called it a generic Entombed ripoff (not surprising considering mainstay Johnny Hedlund was in Nihlist – the band that later became Entombed). Now for some reason people talk about it like it's a lost classic.

So news flash here folks: Unleashed are a generic Entombed ripoff, they have always been a generic Entombed ripoff, and despite what people will tell you, their vaunted early albums sound exactly like this one. If you took Entombed and removed all the involved riffing and weird solos you would have Unleashed. This is old-school Swedish death with a thrashy and sometimes even a doomy feel to it. There is no clickety-clickety US-style technicality, just brutal, brass-knuckled riffs that are pretty simplistic, but memorable for all that. You may roll your eyes at how pedestrian a lot of this is, but you will remember the songs anyway.

I would say that Unleashed's very strength is their middle-of-the-Death-Metal-road approach and their unimaginative songwriting. If you want to pick a band that still plays old-style Swedish Death with no frills at all, this is the band. (Okay, Dismember and probably Fleshcrawl go here too) My point is, if you just want a heavy, riffy good time of an album, then almost any Unleashed album will do. "Victory" is no worse than this band's other albums, and in fact it's a bit better. So for what it is, this album does fine.